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So Good: The Influential James Brown

By

Jim Fusilli

Updated Dec. 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

James Brown, the soul singer who died on Christmas Day, had many nicknames, most notably the Godfather of Soul and the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. Both were apt, and yet dulled by overuse. Neither completely captured his importance to soul and rhythm and blues, and the latter seemed confined to his incomparably dynamic onstage performances and not his struggle to succeed on his own terms as well. Through talent, perseverance and dedication, Brown became one of the most significant figures in 20th-century popular music, creating the template for funk and influencing jazz, disco and hip-hop. American popular music bears his indelible imprint.

Born in Barnwell, S.C., in May 1933, Brown moved from a life of crime and misadventure to gospel music and then R&B. His vocal group the Famous Flames scored a top 10 hit in 1956 with "Please, Please, Please," a ballad that explodes with disquieting passion as Brown pleads for his lover to stay. It's the archetypal Brown ballad performance: a man both desperate and proud, his emotions raw yet never without dignity. A follow-up hit didn't come right away, but Brown kept at it, with nine singles that failed to catch fire. Finally, in October 1958, he released the ballad "Try Me (I Need You)," which reached the top slot on the R&B charts.

A series of hits ensued, and Brown and his band developed a reputation for their incendiary stage show, which featured Brown's singing, shouting and furiously spectacular dancing. The Brown sound of that era is captured on the album "Live at the Apollo" (Polydor), issued in 1962.

Were the history of rock and pop tidy, one could mark "Live at the Apollo" as the summary of the first part of Brown's 50-year career. But Brown, who played organ and drums, had an affinity for terse, soulful instrumentals and recorded many throughout the early part of his career, as the compilation "Soul Pride" (Polydor) illustrates. By 1961, he'd begun to refine his band's sound, and the instrumental single "Night Train" presented it as an up-tempo rhythm machine accentuated by punchy horns. With his movement away from song to complex rhythm, Brown did not anticipate a change in pop music -- he compelled one with his crisp, precise and supremely confident band.

For example, his 1964 hit "Out of Sight" was a blues progression that might have fit well in Ray Charles's repertoire. However, the arrangement wasn't built around the vocal; Brown pushed the eight horns out front and sang in a staccato style that darted between their accents. That collective sound led to Brown's most successful period: In 1965, he had two No. 1 hits -- "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag (Part One)" and his first pass at "I Got You," which he re-recorded and released later as "I Got You (I Feel Good)." By now, with Jimmy Nolen and Alphonso Kellum on guitars, Bernard Odum on bass and Melvin Parker on drums building a platform for voice and the horns, Brown had the soul equivalent of Miles Davis's great jazz quintets: a band that pushed its leader's vision to unexpected heights.

A year later, Brown returned to his earlier forte and scored a hit with the soul ballad "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World." (A version cut two years earlier and released as "It's a Man's World" is better, and both are still available.) By the latter part of the '60s, though, he had taken the "Out of Sight" model even further with "Cold Sweat," which is built on a single repetitive vamp rather than a set of chord changes. His late '60s hits "Say It Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud" and "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I'll Get It Myself)" advanced a message of self-reliance to his fellow African-Americans. Such pronouncements in that era could be seen as radical, and Brown, perhaps the most famous black entertainer in America at the time, lost part of his white audience. But Brown, as was his way, pressed on and greeted the '70s with apolitical hits "Super Bad" and the five-minute workout "Sex Machine." His new band, the JBs, featured future funk stars Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley.

Brown seemed to lose his bearings in the late '80s. He spent more than two years in prison after a drug-fueled car chase with police, and after his release was arrested on spousal-abuse and drug charges. Frequent appearances in the tabloids served to caricature a serious musician and bellwether of contemporary music.

Though Brown never again achieved the consistent level of fame he had in the '60s and '70s, he continued to influence the American music scene. His commitment to dance music presaged disco, his passion for groove-based soul ushered in funk, and the deep percussive foundation of his overall sound, including his vocals, is reflected in hip-hop and rap's rhythms. The advent of the compact disc introduced his music to a new generation of music fans. "Star Time" (Polydor), his four-disc, 71-track boxed set, is essential to any music collection. It's a dazzling summation of the career of an artist who fought to create his own sound, and a heart-wrenching and joyous celebration of his life's work, which will remain influential as soul, pop and R&B continue to evolve.

Mr. Fusilli writes about pop and rock music for the Journal.

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